From Death to Life
by Kitaiko
Summary: Two worlds which are inevitably intertwined are pushed to the brink of destruction with little hope to spare. There is but one hope for two worlds, but can it possibly be enough to stop the spreading darkness?
1. The Disappearing Act

Disclaimer: I do not own Digimon, or any of the digimon that will be appearing in here. I do, however, own the human characters.

A/N: This is a bit of an AU from the cannon, but bear with me. Some of the things such as the exaggerated lapse of time are going to be ignored for dramatic purposes. Also note that this is the first chapter of the first story of a series. I'll just let you know that this is using Digimon Adventure as a guide for the first story. The next will be Digimon Adventure 02 and so forth. No, I'm not using cannon characters.

The world outside was scary. There were scary men, scary women, scary animals and even scary trees. Any sane person who didn't want to get hurt wouldn't go outside into this extremely scary world. After all, if a person were to take even one step, he or she could somehow die an untimely, painful death. A car could come and run into whoever was standing there. A wild animal could jump out of the trees! Someone could show up with a gun. Guns were the worst.

Regardless, a boy stood outside staring at the rain that was falling down in sheets. His pathetic clothing, just an old Mariner's jersey with "Ichiro" printed on the back and a pair of shorts covered him completely. That wasn't good enough, for the rain had already forced it to stick fast to his pale skin. Small ripples of blue and green bunched up under the force of the water and made ugly wrinkles on what would have been, in dry weather, a perfectly ironed out shirt. His khaki shorts were in much the same state, but had turned from khaki to a dark brown some twenty minutes ago at least. There was a necklace hanging from his throat with the name "Kevin" etched into it, presumably his own name.

Kevin wasn't near old enough to be standing out in the rain in that manner. He was perhaps eight years old, maybe nine, but it was hard for anybody to tell. His grey eyes were almost completely dead looking, and if there had been a sparkle of life there at all it had been smothered by the harsh reality of life itself. A few strands of ash blonde hair stuck out of the pile that was smothered to the top of his normally smoothed out head. Due to the rain, however, it seemed like the boy had a coil of rope wrapped around in a large mess on his head.

There was not a sound to be heard, except for the falling of the rain and a little boy's breathing. With each inhale, Kevin would grab a gulp of fresh air, but with each exhale a rush of mist would slowly expel into the air. When he was younger, he used to grab at the strange white cloud that he had created out of nowhere, but now he was too old for that, Madison had said. Madison was always right with her words of wisdom.

Kevin was slowly brought out of his thoughts with what felt to him like a couple of thundering footsteps. They were, however, just a couple of joggers running past like crazy lunatics. Or maybe they were people coming to wait at the bus stop too. Or maybe they were people looking for Madison. There were still a lot of people who wanted to look for Madison even though the police had given up on finding her.

"Kevin Illanda! There you are! Your parents have been worried sick about you," one of the joggers cried out through the rain. The boy could distinctly pick out her voice as female.

"Why are you standing out here? You'll catch cold or something," came the next voice, which was immediately marked male.

The man and the woman waited a moment for Kevin's response, thinking that the boy was going to give them the information they requested immediately. Instead, he turned his head to the side in an act of defiance, refusing to allow anyone to get into the depths of his mind. The man and woman could only stare, puzzled, before looking around at where they were in an attempt to gather what was going on. It was becoming clear, at least, that the boy wasn't going to give them what they wanted.

"Why aren't you talking?" the woman asked, but still there was no answer.

Kevin kept his head down and his eyes averted from the ones around him. He knew who they were, but it wasn't like he wanted to speak with them. They were some old family friends, people who had known him before Madison left. Their puzzled looks were understandable, but at the same time they were complete idiots if they thought he was going to magically start speaking at their arrival. He hadn't spoken a single word since Madison left, and most people could figure out that he wasn't intending to speak again. Most people except for the man and woman standing in front of him, it seemed.

"Hey, Judy. Yeah I found him. He's just sitting here by the bus stop and he won't talk to us," he heard the woman say into her cell phone while blasts of steam rushed past him. "Well, yes I know he hasn't talked since Madison was murdered but…what? Am I not supposed to say that? Oh come on, Judy. Kevin's eight years old, he has a right to know what happened."

Kevin just ignored the woman speaking after a while. It wasn't as if he hadn't heard everything before. There were many different stories about what had happened that day, and nobody had gotten a clear answer except for him. Some said that Madison had been abducted by a man in a van who had then in turn raped and murdered her. Others said she had been wandering around by the riverbed and drowned because the rain had been too heavy and she had lost her footing. Still others believed that she had perhaps fallen prey to plain teenage idiocy.

Young Kevin, however, did not understand any of this. He did not know what the word "rape" meant or really grasped "murder." Water killing someone didn't seem to make any sense whatsoever, and Kevin knew for a fact that Madison didn't hang out around teenagers. It couldn't have been any of those things anyway, for there was a truth that nobody had speculated. There was a truth that only Kevin himself knew.

The man was speaking some words to the woman, or perhaps to his young counterpart, but Kevin paid it no mind. Instead, he was feeling himself slowly falling into a memory. He could already see everything vividly painted into his mind, like the old picture of the wagon in his mother's bedroom. It was all so clear, so crisp, and there was nothing that could possibly bring him out of it…not until he was satisfied.

-------

Madison groaned as she pulled the hoodie up over her head. The black hood stuck to her head, but she quickly brushed it aside and tugged at the bottom that was raised above her waistline. When she was satisfied, she ran over to the window without tripping, since her shoes still a couple of untied snakes, and pressed her face up close to the smooth, cool glass.

She wasn't all that old, but with the way Madison sat pressed against the window she seemed much younger. At ten-years-old, she was spunky and energetic and could sometimes seem as if she was five, but at the same time she could seem wise beyond her years as if she were sixteen. Most people who immediately met her weren't exactly sure how to handle her, but for those who did know her it was a rather easy thing to deal with. Madison was just Madison, and one had to adjust to her moods.

A long ponytail of chocolate brown hair swished back and forth as the young girl turned her head to look at her little brother standing there beside her bed with a curious look on his face. A sigh escaped her as she jumped up, stumbled, and then placed a hand to her shoulder to adjust the straps on her training bra that she probably wouldn't need for another few years. Her brother only looked at her with mild amusement.

"If only you were a girl, Kevin. Then you would understand things," Madison tried to explain as worked at the strap to keep it on her scrawny shoulders. It was clear to anyone that she was definitely not ready for it yet.

"I guess…Madison I'm bored. What're we doing?" Kevin whined at his sister, who only waved her hand to him in a brief dismissal.

"We're going to do something really cool. We're going to go to the park! Mom said we could go today," the older girl explained as she reached down to tie the shoes that had been neglected the entire time.

With that said, as if it were going to answer every single question in anybody's mind, Madison reached out her hand to the little boy in front of her. He took it, confused, and followed her to wherever she was intending to go. It didn't make much sense, but he would let her lead him around if she wanted. She was, after all, his sister and he couldn't just ignore her with this. If she wanted to go to the park, then they would go to the park. Enough said, in his opinion.

Outside the world was calm and not entirely hostile. Everybody was standing around or playing with a soccer ball or an imaginary game. Since it was spring, just about every single person in the world was out enjoying its fresh air, even if the sky was still rather overcast. It never changed in Balldin; that was just how things were. As long as the rain had stopped, then it was okay for anyone to go around and play despite it being quite an overcast day.

Madison, being the elder of the two and the leader of the little team they had formed, led her younger brother through the many houses that littered the sidewalk. It was just their normal neighborhood, nothing to really freak out about. The park, however, wasn't in the residential area of town. It was too noisy and disruptive to have a bunch of kids running around screaming their heads off. So, of course, they had to do what everybody in Balldin did to get somewhere that was not in the neighborhood: take the bus.

The bus stop was about four blocks away from the Illanda household, and it was a trip that the two youngsters took all the time. Before, they had always been escorted by their parents, but since Madison had turned ten she was given the responsibility of taking care of her younger brother when they went out to the park. She had, at first, taken the responsibility to be an amazing coming of age ritual, but she soon found it to be a tedious chore that she rarely wanted to do. After all, there were the times where Kevin wanted to go and she didn't, and the times where she wanted to go and Kevin didn't. They often had to compromise, and if there was one thing Madison hated it was compromise.

The bus stop was, of course, just a normal bus stop stationed on a block. There was a large sign with the name of the company etched across it in big, blue letters, but other than that there was nothing fancy to stop and stare at. The only thing to do was sit back, relax, and wait for the bus to drive its gas-powered engine over to the lonely stop. After that, they just had to wait for the bus to arrive at the park and they could go have their fun. It wasn't like it would be that long once the bus got to their stop, for the next stop was the park, and everybody knew that kids only got on the bus so they could go to the park. Plus, the bus driver was a kind enough man to know who was a regular and who needed to get off where. He wouldn't dare let any of the kids get lost around the city; he was too decent to do something like that.

"Madison I'm booooooooored," whined Kevin, but he only got a blank stare from his sister before he groaned and sat back, refusing to have a fit in front of her like she was expecting. He didn't like her having that satisfaction.

For a few more minutes, the two sat in relative silence with only Kevin clicking his heels against the cement ground a few times. Madison seemed completely lost in her own little world, and by the time the bus pulled up beside them, Kevin had to tug and punch at Madison to get her to start moving again and realize that her long awaited ride had appeared before her. Though she was slightly embarrassed, she covered it quickly and walked over to the bus as fast as she could.

Once on the bus, it took only a few moments to arrive the park, and Madison and Kevin both bounced off to run around in the green grasses. It was everything a young child would possibly want in an outdoor playground: a jungle gym, slides, swings, and just a huge grassy area to use the imagination to stretch reality into what one actually wanted it to be. Everybody went to the park, and everybody enjoyed every minute of it. Well, at least the kids did at least. After the age of eleven, the park just didn't seem as fun anymore, and people stopped attending.

Kevin realized that next year, Madison would soon be at the age where she no longer wanted to go to the park. She would be like Kelly Jameson and want to go to the mall to go look at boys instead of play Spiderman in the dirt. He wasn't sure how exactly one made that transition, but all he knew was that Madison would soon follow in Kelly's footsteps, and he would have just another grown-up who reluctantly took him to the park to watch him awkwardly play with people he didn't even know. He didn't want that! He just wanted a buddy to play with, what Madison had always been!

"I wanna show you somethin' I saw yesterday," Madison said as she ran over to the far side of the grassy area. Kevin, feeling rather dumb, did the only thing he could think to do and followed.

Once there, Kevin just watched Madison digging around in the dirt to find something. The sleeves of her hoodie were rolled up to her elbows, and the dirt ground itself into the knees of her jeans, which their mother would soon decide to nag about. She would give her the lecture on how it was not "fitting for a young lady to be getting her clothes dirty like a boy!" Of course, every time Madison was fed that lecture, she just shrugged it off and went out to dirty her clothes once more. Nothing their mother said ever fazed the girl for too long.

"See, I found somethin' yesterday, but it was all hot and stuff," Madison tried to explain as she dug around. "It was all…glowy and stuff. It fell from the sky and just landed there, so I freaked out and put some dirt over it. I hope it's cooled off now."

The young girl continued to dig through the dirt frantically, as if trying to find what she had desperately been hoping to grab the entire time. Kevin, however, was starting to think this was all just one big joke and decided that he would be better off just walking away and leaving Madison to her little game. If she wanted to go hunt for some imaginary treasure, then she could by all means do that. He, on the other hand, was going to go have some fun if he had been forced to go to the park. Just because Madison was going a little crazy didn't mean that he had to join in.

"KEVIN! KEVIN LOOK!"

Just as Kevin was about to walk away from the whole insane project, Madison jumped up and started screaming her head off. He turned, confused, to see a small bubble of some sort just floating in midair next to his sister. Confused, he walked over to her to try and touch it, but his hand was deflected by the bubble around the small device, and he could only stare at the thing encased within.

The device was perhaps twenty centimeters in diameter at the most, with four smooth sides and four grooves in between those sides. There was a strange script written in a circular pattern on the outside of a small LCD screen with black lining and more script that Kevin could not read. There was one, circular button on the left side of the screen, and two oval buttons. One of the buttons was right on top of another, and they were both positioned to the right of the screen. The screen was black, without any sort of display, and he could not for the life of him discern what exactly it was going to do.

It seemed almost intelligent at first, trying to decide who it was there for. The floating bubble with the device slowly made its way between Madison and Kevin in its decision process, slowly eliminating one or the other for its purposes. In the end, however, it floated above Kevin's outstretched hands and plopped straight into his palms. Surprised from the choice, he almost screamed for Madison to go get help before he realized what exactly it was.

The device was smooth and cool to the touch, unlike what he had originally thought it would be. He tossed it a few times in mid-air, but it did nothing. Aside from the cool bubble trick, he didn't see how it was really anything special at all. It was just some lame little piece of metal that his sister had probably gotten from one of her friends to trick him with. She would then proceed to laugh at him for being so stupid and gullible, and he would not hear the end of it until he could finally pull some prank on her to make her realize that she was just as gullible as he, and then finally shut up about the whole entire thing. That, however, was going to take some work.

"You win, Madison," Kevin sighed as he looked up from the device.

To his surprise, Madison was not there at all. Confused, Kevin pocketed the device and turned his head from side to side. She must have run off, must have left him there, but why? Had he done something wrong by taking the little device from her? It had all be a joke though! She hadn't really cared that he was playing with the little device that she was intending to trick him with, was she? Maybe it wasn't a trick, though; maybe she had actually wanted to play with it…

"Madison!" the little boy screamed, but she was nowhere to be found. He shouted her name again and there was nothing. All that he received was an echo in return. An eerily cold echo. An echo of his sister's name, but never his sister's voice.

Had it really been his fault?

--------------

Kevin was shook out of his silent revere by his mother who had proceeded to smother him in hugs and kisses because she was so worried about him. She had to comment on how he was soaked to the bone and how she didn't like him standing out there waiting to catch pneumonia, but he ignored it all, only nodding or shaking his head to her yes and no questions but never actually speaking. Yes, he would shower. Yes, he would get dressed into something warmer. No he wasn't hurt. No, he had not seen Madison or her kidnapper. No, he didn't hate her.

Finally, when the questioning was all over and he was freed to go change himself and shower, Kevin could only think about how awful it was to be forced home again. He had been waiting silently for his sister so she wouldn't be mad at him. Now that she knew he had returned to their mother and father, she would only understand that he was just a wuss and he couldn't last out on anything. Maybe she was waiting for him to stay out all night, but he couldn't do that. It was raining too hard, and their mother wouldn't dare let him out of her sight at that point in time.

When he arrived in his room, the boy jerked the Mariner's jersey off of his head, allowing his little torso to glisten with moisture accumulated from the rain. He yawned and ran a hand through his messy hair before walking over to his bed. Maybe his mother had instructed him to shower, but he didn't feel like doing so at that moment. Instead, he felt like sitting on his bed trying to think of a way to bring Madison back. That seemed like a much better plan than sitting around doing nothing.

The room was utter silence, and Kevin didn't seem to mind it one bit. He didn't need to talk or make noise, because that was what Madison hated most. She hated that he was such a crybaby, that he could only talk and whine and cry around her. So he wouldn't talk and he wouldn't cry. It didn't matter if his room was boring or not, and it didn't matter if he wanted to say something to make his mother and father stop asking him questions or not. All that mattered was that he would get Madison to come back to him soon if he was just quiet, if he sacrificed enough.

In the silence, a lone beeping noise could be heard. Confused, Kevin looked around the room without bothering to sit up, but could see nothing that would be making such a noise. He didn't have any electronics on, and it wasn't like the T.V. could suddenly come to life and start beeping at him. That made absolutely no sense, but the more he thought about it the more he realized that almost nothing had been making sense since Madison left.

The beeping slowly subsided and a sharp processing noise took its place. It sounded as if there was a computer in his room, but he knew that certainly wasn't true. He didn't have anything of the sort anywhere in his room, and so he didn't exactly know where it could be coming from. In fact, aside from the T.V. and the few game consoles he possessed, the only other thing that could be possibly making the sound would be the device he had found when Madison disappeared…

Suddenly, it dawned on Kevin that perhaps the device _was_ making the noise that he was hearing. Slowly he reached into his pocket to draw out the smooth metal device that he had carried with him since the day he had found it. When Madison returned, he had to give it back to her after all. If she didn't get it back, she might go away again, and so he kept it with him the entire time. Naturally, that made it incredibly easy to see whether it really was making the noise or not.

The moment Kevin's hand touched the device he could feel its vibrations running through it and into his hand. For some reason, he felt compelled to grasp it even more, as if the fact that it was finally doing something odd wasn't, well, odd in itself. Maybe it was because he was a curious boy, or maybe it was because he had already seen enough in his life, but he went along with the entire thing. He refused to freak out and call his parents, or desperately toss it out the window. No, instead he figured investigating it wouldn't be so bad. Investigating what was making the strange noise almost seemed like the _best_ thing to do at the time.

When the device was pulled from the boy's pocket, a brilliant golden color was shining from the screen. Kevin quickly shielded his eyes in a vain attempt to block out what was coming toward him, but it only grew stronger to penetrate the barrier he had created. The tighter he squeezed his arm around his eyes, the brighter it became. It was almost as if the device was trying to force him into a state of blindness. That couldn't be, though, for it was an inanimate object incapable of sentiment thought…why would it be trying to force him into that state?

It was still too bright to look out, but Kevin kept holding onto the device. It was getting warmer now, gradually turning into what he had originally thought it would feel like. No longer was he holding the boring, smooth device but a burning hot blinding device! It wasn't tame, and it definitely wasn't something that his sister would have wanted to trick him with if she had known its destructive power. Now, however, he was stuck with it. He was stuck in its blinding light and there was no way out of it.

-------------------

When sight finally returned to Kevin's eyes, he was face-down in darkness. There was nothing around that he could make out, but he wondered if perhaps it had anything to do with the bright flash of light he had just experienced. Naturally he wouldn't be able to see in the dark instantly, but then again he also didn't know how much time had passed. He was just more confused than anything. His whole body was trying to adjust to whatever had happened, but it wasn't doing very well.

In the darkness, Kevin could hear footsteps approaching him. They didn't seem all that threatening, but more like a cautious tread. Still, natural instinct caused his muscles to tense and his entire body to become rigid. He was going to either fight or flee, but he couldn't exactly choose which one. The darkness would make it hard to do both, and he only had one option. Perhaps his foe also had darkness against him…

"Takashi? Where are you?" a lost voice called, the voice of a young boy who needed help.

Kevin remained quiet, however. It could have been a ploy of some kind to lure him out and kill him. Whatever was calling about in the strange darkness was not something he was sure he wanted to trust. Besides, if that thing was looking for Takashi, it could look for him away from Kevin. After all, the last time Kevin checked he was not known as Takashi, or any other foreign name at that. He was just Kevin, and he was going to remain Kevin for the rest of his life!

The voice became a body, and that body emerged from the darkness into Kevin's little hole of equal darkness. Light flared up around the body, and it was incredibly hard for the young boy to make out. From what he could tell, it was a human boy just like him except…he had strange markings. The light illuminated a happy, smiling face with strange purple markings all down his left side. Golden bangs came close to covering his bright blue eyes, but they seemed to be flipped up in an angelic manner.

However, none of that was really all that strange, not even the markings. After all, Kevin figured it could have been some strange boy who wanted to dress up for Halloween early like some usually did. There was just one thing, one very definite thing that made Kevin think twice about labeling the boy just another boy. It didn't even have to do with the way he had a toga-like cloth strung around him or large, golden bangles hanging off of his arms and legs. No, none of that mattered much to Kevin.

The one thing that made Kevin look twice at the other boy were four sets of wings sprouting from his back and one from his head. Altogether, there were ten wings all sprouting from either his back or his head in varying sizes. The ones on the boy's head and the bottom of his back were considerably small compared to the wings attached to the middle of his back. Those wings, Kevin assumed, could be used for flying off somewhere if he wanted.

"Takeshi!" the other boy cried as he ran over to Kevin and extended a hand.

Kevin, not realizing that he was still completely tensed up, automatically thrust out his fist to punch at the other boy, or whatever he was. The boy, however, just laughed and placed his hands upon the fist that had made contact with the soft, human-like flesh of his stomach. He didn't even seem to care that Kevin had attached him, but was merely focused on opening the hand that had been thrust at him. Somehow, that seemed to be the only and best thing on his mind.

"Ah yes, Takeshi," the boy said as he revealed the device that had been gripped tightly in Kevin's fist. Now, it was merely laying flat on his palm, undisturbed.

The other boy's eyes gleamed with a curiosity that almost frightened Kevin. He didn't understand any of this at all, especially not who this boy was. How did he know about the device? How come the punch did absolutely nothing to him? Kevin just didn't understand any of this, and he had a feeling things were going to get even worse. With the way the other boy was staring at him, with that determined curiosity in his eyes, he knew that it wasn't going to be easy to get away.

"I'm glad I finally found you, Takeshi. I am pleased to introduce myself as your partner, Lucemon."

Kevin merely stared at the boy after the introduction and couldn't help but wonder just what he had gotten himself into.


	2. Expect the Unexpected

Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon. It'd be way awesome if I did, though. The humans are all mine though.

A/N: Woohoo! Thanks for your reviews, guys. I'm hoping that this chapter will accumulate some more. Chapter one started a little slow, yeah, but this one should prove better. With less typos too. No more editing at midnight for me.

-----------------

Kevin could only stare dumbly at the boy who was standing before him. All of this was so strange, so confusing. Takashi, Takeshi…partner? What was going on? The last thing he had known he was sitting on his bed with an unusually bright light shining on his face, and now he was faced with all of this! Where _was _he, anyway? Surely not still sitting soundly in his room, for somebody might have noticed all of this eventually.

"What, you don't talk?" the boy, Lucemon, asked curiously when he noticed Kevin only staring at him. Kevin slowly nodded his head in response, but only to be met with an annoyed groan from the boy standing in front of him.

"Well that's stupid. You're not going to survive here unless you do. And you're certainly not going to save Takashi that way either."

That struck the little boy as odd, for he had no idea where he was or what he was supposed to do and already he was being told he had to start talking because he needed to _save_ somebody? That had to be the dumbest thing he had ever heard, especially coming from a boy with wings coming out of his back. No way! He wasn't going to follow around some Halloween reject. His mother had warned him about talking to strangers, and now he knew exactly why.

However, Kevin knew he wasn't exactly the one in control. All around him, multiple trees surrounded him, only brought into being due to Lucemon's aura. Without his supposed partner, he wouldn't be able to see anywhere. Also, he didn't know where exactly he was, so going home would prove to be quite the problem. He couldn't exactly just get up and take the bus back, could he? Besides, even if he could, there wasn't going to be a bus in a forest; that was just stupid.

For a dark, scary forest, nothing was really making any intimidating noises. For as far as Kevin could see into the darkness, there were no scary, glowing red eyes nor were there growling sounds from deep within. All that he could really make out were trees. Miles and miles of tress that he would never be able to navigate. Though trees weren't exactly scary, he had to admit that walking around in a maze of trees without any idea where he was going could also prove rather dangerous.

Kevin glanced back up at Lucemon, who was leaning against one of the trees and examining his fingernails. For someone who was trying to save another human being, he didn't seem all that interested in trying to convince Kevin that he needed to rush out and save that Takashi boy. How much could it really matter if Lucemon himself wasn't running around like mad trying to do something about the situation? After all, Kevin didn't think he could really be that big of a help.

So, instead of actually offering a word of advice to Lucemon to help him find his friend, Takashi, Kevin merely stared at the other boy. He wouldn't speak, that would just go and drive Madison farther away. If Lucemon couldn't understand that, then he could just go find another boy to beg for help. Kevin honestly didn't care if he was going to be the one who rushed in and saved the day or if some five-year-old girl did. It wouldn't help him do accomplish anything at all, and it sure wouldn't help him bring Madison back. No, it would only introduce him to more strangers he didn't want to meet.

"Well as riveting as this conversation is, I think I'll change the subject," Lucemon said with a grin plastered across his face. "I know you have no idea where you are, and that you might indeed want to know. I mean, if you're going to be stuck here for a while you might as well know just what's going on, right?"

There was still no answer from the boy. Instead, he found his own tree to lean against in an exact imitation of Lucemon. He forced a frown and a serious stare, even though that was the exact opposite of what Lucemon was doing. It was clear, however, that he wasn't doing this to actually make a statement, but merely bother the boy in front of him. At that point, Lucemon had no idea, and merely began to explain what it was he was hoping Kevin to ask about.

"You see, Takeshi, you're in the Digital World. I know, I know, you don't know what that is. It's…well it's a counterpart to your Earth made up solely of data."

Lucemon's hands waved about from side to side as he began his explanation. Kevin grinned and copied his movements exactly, while opening his mouth to its fullest width and then closing as fast as Lucemon was talking.

"This data also creates the creatures on this world. Digimon, we are called, and we come in many shapes and sizes. None of us are human, including me. You see these wings? I can really fly. The aura? I can really send out blasts of energy. It really is quite a marvelous world."

For the remainder of his speech, Lucemon spread his hands in front of him to demonstrate an "attack" while his wings would flap while he spoke of them. Near the end, his arms made wide, arching gestures which Kevin followed and, in turn, almost fell over from the force of his arms spinning about. He would have laughed once he had fallen and pointed at Lucemon for looking so silly, but he could not make a noise. The boy could not even laugh or it would ruin everything. So instead, he just grinned.

"Yes, yes, you think you're funny. That doesn't change that you're a digidestined, Takeshi, and that as long as you possess the digivice, it's your responsibility to work with me to help the digital world return to its peaceful state. You see…"

With all the mocking put aside, Kevin listened intently to what Lucemon explained next. There was a darkness spreading over the digital world which was corrupting digimon all over. They were turning against one another and fighting like vicious savages, and even the weakest of digimon were being deleted. That was why there were children called, like him.

Apparently there were others like him, more who were called but not yet found. Their digimon had been scattered and were looking for them as they arrived, with Lucemon as the exception. He had thought that the other boy who descended from the sky, Takashi, had been his partner but it was not so. Ryuudamon had, apparently, shown up and claimed Takashi as his partner. The digivice, which was apparently the device Kevin had found the day Madison disappeared, had reacted and shone brightly when Ryuudamon and Takashi were close, so that meant they were partners, or something of the sort.

"You see, Takeshi? Look at your digivice, it's glowing. That means you're my partner," Lucemon said, and he was indeed right. In his hands, Kevin noticed the brightly glowing device and decided that, at least for that point in time, he could trust Lucemon as his "partner."

The two sat in silence, for neither knew exactly where to go from there. Kevin couldn't voice his thoughts to Lucemon, and the digimon certainly wasn't a mind reader. It was obvious to both, however, that something needed to be done. If there really _were _other people around, then Kevin had to find them. As for Lucemon, his main objective was to find Takashi and make sure he was okay. Whatever had happened wasn't exactly an easy, breezy walk in the park.

"Well," Lucemon said as he walked away from the tree, turning his back to Kevin. "If you want to help him, Takeshi, then you can come with me. I won't make you, but I think Takashi needs you more than you could imagine. Sure, he doesn't know you, but as long as he sees there's another digidestined there to help him, he might have some kind of hope left to fight this."

With that, Lucemon began walking away. He didn't seem to want to wait any longer for anybody's help, including Kevin's. After all, who would want to wait around for a little brat who wasn't going to be of any use unless he actually gave in and realized that he needed to help save somebody? Lucemon knew better than to trust in him at that point, and felt that Takashi was, at the moment, better without Kevin's help than with one digimon out of the action trying to persuade him.

Lucemon sighed as he began to pick up his pace. He didn't hear his partner behind him, and that fact forced him to give up on the hope that perhaps he would change his mind and help the other human boy. That was just too much to ask, though. Way too much to ask. Stupid selfish human. There wasn't any reason to trust any of them.

"AHHHHHHHH!!! OH MY GOD!!! ANOTHER PERSON!!!!" a shrill, high-pitched voice screamed from behind the walking digimon.

Lucemon cringed, and turned around to observe one of the most amusing sights he could have hoped to see. Kevin was on the ground with a slightly older girl squeezing him tightly around the waist. Her long, blonde hair was flung about him in a messy wad, which he was slowly trying to shove off of him. It was, actually, hard to figure out where her hair ended and her body started.

Kevin twisted his face into a flustered expression and quickly pushed the girl off of him. She fell onto her back, quickly sat up, and looked at him with her expressive light-blue eyes. Strands of blonde fell in front of her face as she turned her head slightly to the side to get a better view of who was sitting right in front of her. Her face scrunched in thought for a moment, quickly brightened up, and she extended her hand.

"Hey! My name's Catherine! Nice to meetcha. I thought I'd never find another person around here!"

"My dear, your name isn't Catherine anymore. It's Ruya," a low, masculine voice corrected from the bushes. Ruya turned her head toward the sound, and quickly looked down in shame.

Out of the bushes stepped the first quadruped Kevin had seen in the strange new world. It was the most accurate assumption to call him a lion cub digimon, for he definitely looked the part. His fur was golden in color, with a tuft of a rust-colored mane sticking up from the top. He had the same light blue eyes that Ruya did, except his were fiercer in appearance. A color made from pure gold rested around his neck with an oval-shaped emerald hanging from the front like a tag on a domestic animal. His tail swished side to side, rubbing against his well-muscled legs. It was quite obvious this digimon was definitely one to look out for. He definitely did not have the innocent appearance Lucemon carried.

"Sorry Leormon. I'm tryin' to get used to it but it's hard," Ruya apologized as she got to her feet and rubbed some of the dirt off of her hemmed-up blue jeans.

Ruya stood perhaps five inches taller than Kevin, and when she stood her hair didn't seem quite so long. Granted, it was still down to her waist, but it was a lot less to deal with when it was flat against her back and not in a tangled mess on top of another person. Other than a pair of worn-out blue jeans, she wore a black t-shirt with the outline of what was most likely supposed to be a black cat in little white sequins. Over that, she merely wore a plain brown jacket to keep the cold out. The jacket looked awfully appealing to a bare-chested Kevin, who was already regretting taking off his Mariner's jersey.

"Hey, you shouldn't be wandering around the digital world without a shirt!" Ruya scolded as she ran up to Kevin and stared down at him with her "intimidating" height.

"Don't waste your breath, Ruya. Takeshi doesn't talk," Lucemon explained as he folded his arms in what faintly resembled disgust. "Look, I don't have time to waste. I need to go help another digidestined, Takashi. He's been taken by Airdramon, with Ryuudamon in pursuit. They got away from me, so I've been chasing them, but then I got side-tracked with Takeshi, thinking he would help."

"That's a nasty situation. Ryuudamon would be no match for Airdramon alone…" Leormon murmured, though more to himself than to Lucemon. "Ruya, we have to go help him. Unless the digital world's been turned upside-down, a rookie won't stand a chance against a champion for long."

Ruya nodded to her partner's comment, but turned to give a look of pity to Kevin. He looked like a mess, with his hair wild and barely dry, and his shorts wrinkled and dirty. The only thing that remained somewhat decent was the tag around his throat, but even as she squinted to get a better view of it, the girl realized that the writing had somehow been scratched over, perhaps on the way through the portal to the digital world. He couldn't identify himself as a person, because he couldn't talk, and not even a tag from his home could tell anybody who he was.

"You should really go help Takashi. We're the only ones here, and we all want to go home just like you," Ruya whispered in an attempt to hide her pity from the digimon. She was, however, unaware of the fact that their own heightened senses dominated whatever she could try to do to mask it.

Ruya turned around, knowing there was nothing more to say. Either the boy would come with her, or he would not, but there was no in-between and there was no use waiting. Besides, Leormon and Lucemon were both waiting for her, and if she didn't go with them then she would be left behind just like Kevin, and that was the last thing she wanted to do. If he was going to just stay behind and watch as somebody died, then he would watch alone.

However, just as the girl was about to run off with her digital partner and his comrade, she felt a tugging on her jacket. Quickly, she turned to see Kevin trying to pull the jacket off of her without her noticing, but it was no use. He obviously hadn't taken into account that she was taller than him, and most likely weighed more. All his tugging did was bring her to an annoyed halt. With a grunt of annoyance, she turned around to the little tormentor to see just why he was doing such a thing. What kind of a fool was he to drag her down with him?

"What do you want? My jacket? Fine, take it. You'll need it if you're going to be alone here," Ruya growled as she shrugged off her jacket. She couldn't help but feel completely annoyed; the boy would ruin the brave image that Leormon had of her if he kept that up! Maybe he was okay with his partner seeing he was a coward, but she wasn't okay with it at all.

Kevin grabbed the jacket and put it on immediately before darting past its pervious owner and to the digimon who were already way ahead of the two humans. Surprised at the boy's seemingly sudden change of heart, Lucemon turned to Leormon who was keeping a steady pace next to him. The lion digimon didn't seem to notice, however, for his mind was set completely on detecting Airdramon and the boy who was about to become lunch for the dragon digimon. The only thing on his mind was how he was going to save him, nothing more.

Ruya soon appeared in the center of the group, her long legs pumping fast to keep up with Lucemon's flight and Leormon's running. She noticed, curiously enough, that Kevin didn't seem to be having a problem keeping up with them at all. It was as if he was born to run like that, or perhaps it was just the adrenaline that was pumping through his body too fast to sort what was sensible and what was not. Whatever it was, he was following it whole-heartedly and there was no turning back at all.

The trees were beginning to lessen the more the group ran. Leormon soon took the lead, knowing exactly where he was going. Lucemon didn't seem to have a problem with Leormon leading, but he too had an air of confidence about him that marked a digimon who knew his way around the woods just as well as Leormon did. The children, however, followed behind with much less confidence. Neither one knew where they were going, what was ahead, or even what Airdramon was. For all they knew, it could have been some elaborate trap to kill them!

Soon enough, though, the answers began to arrive. The trees thinned and immediately disappeared, and before the travelers knew it, they were standing with the woods to their backs and a great prairie ahead. In the distance, there were jagged mountains thrusting up like the spikes of a great beast, but there was nothing to show of that beast at the moment. In fact, the prairie they stood on was just grass for miles and miles, much like the trees of the forest they had emerged from.

"I can smell it," Leormon growled as he slowly made his way a few feet in front of the group. "Airdramon. Female, is my guess. She's been here lately…with a human. That must be Takashi."

Lucemon's jaw tightened as he surveyed the empty field. For a moment, he remembered the children and turned to make sure that they were all right, and then turned back to his close watch of the field. Airdramon was somewhere, that was for sure, but where? Had she taken Takashi with her already, and what about Ryuudamon? Leormon hadn't smelled the other dragon digimon's scent, but perhaps that was just because there were too many scents around. Ryuudamon had to be there, he couldn't have been deleted that quickly by _Airdramon _of all digimon!

The silence tore at Kevin as he stood there, clutching the jacket around his bare chest. The last time things were as silent as that prairie was, Madison had left shortly after. Did that mean it was a bad omen? Would Takashi be dead by the time they finally found Airdramon? He shook, but it had nothing to do with the cold. What if this was just history waiting to repeat itself? Takashi could disappear, just like Madison had…

"Lajin!" a weary, masculine voice echoed as the sound of metal on metal could be heard. There was merely a roar in response, but nothing could be seen.

"Ryuudamon!" Lucemon shouted as he looked above and squinted his eyes.

Slowly, a snake-like figure came into the group's view. Her body extended out like a thick, long, blue rope with giant red wings. Feathers protruded from the end of her body, presumably the tail, and in a circle around her skull-plated head. Her lower jaw, which was the same blue flesh as the rest of her body, slowly dropped to reveal a battered figure within and another hanging on for dear life from one of her mighty teeth. Lucemon and Leormon both looked on in horror while the children could only stare dumbly, completely confused about the situation.

"Lucemon, you've gotta do something! Look, she's gonna kill Takashi!" Ruya screamed as she pointed to the figure stuck in Airdramon's mouth. "You can fly, can't you? You can get him down from there, right?!"

"It's not that easy," Lucemon said, turning his head away from Ruya's expectant stare in shame. "If I attack Airdramon, I could risk attacking Takashi. Also, she doesn't care about either one, and could kill both Takashi and Ryuudamon on the spot if I'm not careful. We can't disrupt this game of hers."

Ruya sighed and her fingers twitched nervously. It was hard, watching all of this go on without any way to stop it. Takashi was going to die, and Lucemon didn't want to be a factor in all of it. There was no safe way to get Takashi down, and yet there was no safe way to leave him up there either. Lucemon was right, Airdramon was just playing a game with them, and she would end it whenever she got bored. If they allowed her to do so, then they would lose their teammate before any of them met. That would be one person who wouldn't get to see his family, one person who would die an unexplained death in the digital world. One person that she couldn't save.

"Leormon…can't you do something?" she asked her digimon hopefully, but Leormon only shook his head, the emerald collar swinging back and forth as well. That made sense, though, if a digimon like Lucemon couldn't even do anything then what hope did Leormon, a ground-based digimon, stand?

Kevin, however, was fixated with the horned helmet of Airdramon. One of her horns protruding back in the direction of her tail had a dark black spot upon it. It wasn't normal, and it definitely threw off the natural symmetry of one horn to the other. A black speck, just like Takashi was. So then, was it another digidestined, or was it just a digimon who was standing there? He wasn't entirely sure, but he knew that one thing was for certain: somebody else had to see it. Somebody else had to know it was there and do something about it! Maybe Lucemon could do something, or even Leormon…

"I can't watch this anymore," Lucemon growled through clenched teeth. The calm countenance he had worn before was gone, and all that was left was an angry friend who wanted to see his friends' lives spared. "I'm going to end this right now!"

In a foolish rush toward Airdramon, Lucemon flew toward her mouth, the cage in which his friends were stored. However, Airdramon had picked up on the advancing digimon and instantly swiped her tail downward, slapping him back to the ground. A mad cackle erupted from the digimon, and was echoed by whatever was atop her horn. However, it was only Kevin that picked up on the latter; the others assumed that it was just an echo of Airdramon's loud voice.

The boy desperately wished to say something, to shout out to his friends that there was another person up there! It couldn't happen, though. He couldn't let everything he had worked for just fall apart right then and there to save someone he didn't know. What did it matter whether Takashi lived or died? What did it matter about the figure on the horn of Airdramon? Who really cared about Ryuudamon? No, he couldn't speak, not even to save a life. Madison would know, and then she would never come back to him.

Lucemon, however, was down on the ground struggling to get up. He had been slapped down hard by the force of her tail, and blood was already starting to trickle down his once-innocent face. That same face had been twisted by anger and pain, and his fingernails clawed at the dirt in front of him to express some of that bottled rage. He couldn't take it, he just couldn't! It was too hard to sit there watching his friends die right before his eyes and be unable to do a thing about it.

"Dammit…Takeshi! You're my partner!" Lucemon shouted at the top of his lungs, immediately drawing Kevin's attention. "Help me! Help Takashi! Don't just sit there and do nothing!"

Kevin stood, watching Lucemon as he struggled to rise, but could not. His wings were bent inward toward his body, just like a bird's broken wings. He was pathetic, lying there in the dirt like some kind of fool. He had been stripped of his former glory because of Airdramon. No, not just Airdramon, but the _human_ that he knew was on Airdramon's horn. Yes, it had to be a human, for no other digimon would possibly look that way on a fellow digimon's back.

It was all this person's fault that he couldn't go home! Whoever it was, he or she was trying to just make his life a whole lot worse! He couldn't go home and wait for Madison, no! No, instead he was stuck there watching the only one who was nice to him at first, Lucemon, be torn into a million little pieces all because he or she was enjoying his or her self! Well he would end that; he would make sure that the person never smiled again! Ever! He would make sure that this person paid in full for what he or she had done to him and to Lucemon, along with Takashi and Ryuudamon. Oh yes, this person would pay. This person would pay completely.

Kevin hated the person atop Airdramon.

"Takeshi?" Ruya asked, worry ringing in her voice. "Takeshi, are you okay?"

It didn't seem like Kevin was okay in the least bit. He was standing there, a mad grin splitting his lips as he reached over to the belt loop that his digivice hung off of. The clip slipped free of the loop and the device rested neatly in his hands, but it was not merely sitting still. A white light erupted from it and seemed to envelope his entire hand, while the whites of his eyes consumed every other part of the eye.

Lucemon giggled slightly as he felt the energy flow into him, but choked back some of the spit that he had not intended to go down. So it had worked, everything had worked after all. Kevin wasn't a failure; he was turning out to do exactly what he was supposed to. Finally he could be strong enough. Finally he could ascend to the next level of power! It was strange to finally feel the power of the digidestined flow into him, but he accepted it wholeheartedly. He would take that power, use it as his own, and become something new.

The white light enveloped Lucemon so that there was nothing left to see of him. Kevin stood still, holding his digivice extended toward Lucemon so he could absorb the full power being given to him. Leormon looked on in horror while Ruya watched in fascination. The light continued to glow brighter and brighter, while Kevin only stared blankly, seeing nothing and yet everything at the same time.

Time seemed to slow as the light dissipated and revealed not Lucemon, but another angelic being floating in his place. He was much taller, perhaps about three feet taller than Lucemon himself. A grey helmet descended over his eyes and nose, leaving only the pale skin of the area around his mouth. Golden hair flowed from the helmet and down to his waist in perfectly straight locks. Covering the rest of his body was a strange, white outer-skin which was then covered by a blue cloth strapped to the waist which descended downward over the legs. In various parts of his body there were gold plates and designs of a holy being. The same blue cloth that covered the digimon's legs spiraled around his left leg and right arm separately. Black leather straps concealed the right leg's calf and right arm's knuckles, while a gold bracelet adorned the left wrist. Four strange, metallic buttons were spread about his chest in various places, matching the metal of the helmet.

"What just happened?" Ruya asked, her jaw sliding open in sheer shock.

"Lucemon just digivolved," Leormon replied, but there was more than a slight trace of worry in his voice. "But it's not supposed to be like that. Something's wrong. Very, very wrong. Look at Takeshi, he's not even moving!"

Leormon's words were true, for Kevin had not moved one muscle during the entire process. He stood still, staring as if he was cemented to the ground even though Angemon was floating in the sky and staring toward Airdramon. The only part of Kevin that had moved was his mouth, grinning in the manner that Angemon was at that exact moment. A cocky, arrogant grin that assured victory to all those around, even if it wasn't the exact truth.

Angemon, however, noticed none of this and merely took off flying toward Airdramon. Airdramon swung her tail at the angel digimon, who immediately grabbed onto it and swung her down toward the ground. The momentum alone was enough to send Airdramon flying down toward the ground like a rope being swung by a cowboy. Just as the digimon was flying to the ground, however, Angemon grabbed both a young boy in the mouth of the dragon digimon and a different dragon digimon who was hanging onto the teeth for dear life: Takashi and Ryuudamon.

Airdramon crashed to the ground with an amazing thud, and immediately a bright light like Angemon's enveloped her. It was faster this time, though, and the end result was a brightly colored penguin digimon. She had purple fur all over, except for her white underbelly and red talons. As any normal bird, she had yellow feet and a yellow beak, which had a black tip on the front. A succession of the letter "v" ran down her underbelly as a purple marking, but on top of that was something much, much more exciting. On top of that, was a human.

"Penguinmon? Penguinmon, are you okay?" the human, a girl asked as she stood up and looked at her digimon.

The girl herself was nothing to be afraid of, for she was perhaps around nine years old, making her younger than Ruya yet older than Kevin. She had brown hair that extended down to her shoulders and flipped out at the tips, and dull green eyes that made her seem almost like a tree. Like Ruya, she wore a pair of blue jeans, but they were tighter and newer than Ruya's, and her white shirt with the design of a red dragon head was vastly different than Ruya's cat design.

"You did this to Penguinmon!" the girl shouted as she turned around to look at her enemies. "You did this—"

The girl was cut off as she surveyed the damage done to the rest of the group. Lying on the ground was a bruised and battered boy of around ten years, Takashi. He wasn't bleeding, but he was definitely going to be sore for quite some time. Tufts of red hair were blown around his face and in some cases ripped from his skull. His jean jacket was ripped and useless, but at least the blue shirt underneath it had been able to survive. Takashi wore a pair of black cargo pants which were torn near the bottom from Airdramon's grip. His breathing was slightly harsh, but that was mostly from the panic he had undergone.

Lying next to him was a digimon, Ryuudamon. Like Airdramon, he was a dragon digimon but lacked the wings and the sheer size of the former. He was perhaps four feet tall, and stood upright on two feet. Black, samurai armor with smooth purple gemstones plated his back and arms. Atop his head, he still kept that same armor, but there was a gold headband that extended backwards and flared into jagged edges. Separating the two pieces of armor was a large ruby in the center of his head which was incredibly hard to stop looking at. His underbelly was a dusky grey, but the sides of his body that stuck out from the armor were beige, which matched his emerald green eyes.

"You're another digidestined…" Ruya murmured as she looked at the other girl who was, naturally, standing awestruck. "But you did this to your allies. Who are you?"

"But I…but he…no! No!" the girl protested, and shook her head a few times to emphasize her point. "No. Who's the partner of that Angemon who harmed Penguinmon?!"

Angemon, at that point, had already dedigivolved to Lucemon. Lucemon was sitting beside Ryuudamon, trying to make sure that there were no serious injuries to him even though he looked in terrible shape. That, in turned, had released Kevin from his trance so he could actually raise his hand to answer the girl's question. For some reason, he was not afraid of what she would do to him at that point. He just didn't seem to care.

"You're going to pay for doing that to the digidestined Masashi! What is your name, you scum?" the girl demanded as she took a step toward Kevin.

Kevin regarded the girl for a moment, shrugged, and made his way over to her. He slowly reached behind his back, unclasped the tag that was hanging from his neck and stretched his hand out to her. It seemed a useless gesture, since his name had been scratched out of the metal on the way into the digital world.

"Takeshi? That's your name?" Masashi asked, though her voice was more of a growl than a normal, human voice.

Takeshi smiled.

---------------

A/N: It's always bugged me that Lucemon never had a champion form. Angemon made sense, except it's so…cannon. So I made it not cannon! Whew, three digidestined in one chapter! Maybe I'll be able to get the rest in on the next update! …wishful thinking, I'm sure. Man, I never realized Angemon had so much to him. Anyway, please review! I cannot emphasize enough how much I would like that.


End file.
